I’ve been a 1000 different women, all of whom have had to die in order for me to be me. You know it in your body, the parts of yourself that have to die in order to move forward, the parts of yourself that need death to make way for birth.
Holding on to old parts, belief systems, dreams, youth, certain stories and the need for approval prevents growth. Stop holding the parts of yourself that are holding you back, stop holding on like it’s a lifeline. The fear of transition holds us all back, we get comfortable in the similarity of ritual, we sustain ourselves with ‘sameness.’
I know it’s scary, but let go and travel into the unknown. Travel towards the places that take your breath away, that make you question yourself, that grip your heart, that invoke anxiety, and learn to trust in those feelings. Those feelings are not to be feared – they are wisdom.
Watching the ways you get triggered by change is an important practice, and practicing being triggered is also an important practice. Don’t invite drama and conflict but allow yourself to watch you as you are while staying with the discomfort of being triggered. Allow it to stretch you and push you into a new cycle of personal understanding.
Allow. Just allow.
Allow the discomfort and don’t rush it. Slow it down, sit in it, be with it like you would be with someone in the hospital. Tend to the bedside of your struggle. Hold its hand.
Allow. Just allow.
Be swept up by the uncertainty. Become that which you fear, the unknown.
Allowing for the transition, allow for the uncertainty. Contemplate and even meditate on allowing for something else that you can’t yet imagine. Go through winter, get buried by the snow, sit in the in-between and just wait. Spring will come and you will awaken a new person. You will notice something you’ve never seen before.
Stop holding on so hard to what you’ve always known and go towards the things you can’t see.
Transformation is not about knowing, it’s not something we share online, it’s a reckoning with ourselves that doesn’t have to be witnessed by the masses. The effects of it impact our lives, they determine what people get to experience of us and how that change shifts us and those around us. Allowing for the winters of ourselves makes the world a kinder place. Knowing that something more fruitful is coming, we will not wish it away, and we’ll be content to sit in the in-between.
I need this reminder. I write this for myself to remember that as things change, I can sit tall. I can breathe deep and avoid the temptation to hold my breath, to brace against the change I’m feeling. We all need this reminder.
You can choose to stay the same, to invite in similar experiences and people, to stay comfortable. No judgment. Yet, if you’re called to take in this life and go through the seasons of evolution, if that invitation feels guttural, go towards it.
Initiation is your potential; the initiation is the invitation. It will feel hard, it will also feel difficult and that isn’t a bad thing.
I’ll say this one more time – watching the way you get triggered by change is an important practice; practicing being triggered is also an important practice.
Love, Noelle